Next day was Livermore Rodeo day. Yes Sirree! One hour west of the city there was an all American Rodeo just for us. It was one of the most fun days we’ve had - a rootin’ tootin’ gun slingin’ whip crackin’ lip smackin’ day.

... to the Brakes and we had to wait for a mechanic from AMTRAK to turn up. It Broke down 3 times on our journey. Upshot when we arrived to the station to meet up with our next guide we were 2 hours late, we were supposed to arrive at 10:30am and it was now 12:30pm.

Jonathan, our tour guide had plan B lined up for us. Instead of having us back to the train at 4:30pm he would drive us back to ...

... 70s. Although they, the National Parks, are now working on it, it is a bit sad, never mind the lingering air of depression within the prison. It has a history of being a fort, civil war and post civil war army prison and military base until the thirties, when it became the penitentiary. Abandoned in 1963 it was briefly occupied by Indians protesting against the government's continuing mistreatment of the native Indian nation. Their graffiti is still evident. After ...

... from Hertz was pretty disappointing an the car is pretty knocked around and filthy - the Yaris is cleaner and it only gets washed once every 6 months!!! Anyway we couldn't let it ruin our trip so we were just happy it would get us from A to B.

After a long day of travelling, we got into Santa Barbara at around 6:30pm and checked into our motel. The motel looked lovely and we were excited to find our room. We walked down the hall to ...